Prince Paul had made a few beats for Stetsasonic’s In Full Gear while employed as that Brooklyn group’s DJ in the ‘80s but it was his inspired work on De La Soul’s 1989 debut 3 Feet High and Rising, an album hailed for its innovative sampling, that first established the Amityville, Long Island native as a giant in the hip-hop production game. Unfortunately, Paul and De La's unauthorized use of the Turtles’ “You Showed Me” for “Transmitting Live From Mars” (one of many offbeat interludes on the album, which introduced the phenomenon of the hip-hop skit) triggered a 1991 lawsuit by the Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman of the Turtles that would set the legal precedent prompting record labels to begin stringently crediting and paying significant royalties for samples. (And thereby deterring many producers and artists from using samples with the same voracity as they had been). But not before Freestyle Fellowship, the L.A. rap quartet (consisting of Aceyalone, Myka 9, P.E.A.C.E. and Self Jupiter) who brought Native Tongues-style, jazz-inspired lyricism to the West Coast, used the same sample on “Sunshine Men,” from their 1991 album To Whom It May Concern.

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